


You Don't Have to Have a Reason

by saveupyourhopes



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Bottom Bucky Barnes, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Missionary Position, Top Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2020-01-01 00:50:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18325343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saveupyourhopes/pseuds/saveupyourhopes
Summary: Bucky lifts his head, tired, looks at Steve with those blue eyes and stands himself up.  Steve cradles his face between both hands; something heavy hangs between them, a moment passes, and then it’s gone, the rough pads of Steve’s thumbs stroking the ruddy apples of Bucky’s cheeks before he shifts and leads Bucky back into the bedroom.





	You Don't Have to Have a Reason

“I think I’m dying.”

Leaning against a work bench, watching Shuri work at the bloody gash in Bucky’s left pectoral, Steve stands with his arms folded over his chest, a fine, only slightly distressed furrow between his brows.

“You’re not dying. It only hurts like you are,” Shuri says, not looking at Bucky. Her kimoyo beads sing from her wrist, and touching one of them, the bleeding from Bucky’s chest begins to slow as a soft, red glow illuminates the wound.

Bucky exchanges a glance with Steve. His eyes are tired; Steve can always tell when Bucky’s coming down hard from a mission, when he puts too much of himself into the fighting; loses Bucky and becomes the White Wolf. Sometimes battle consumes him, tunnel vision unlike anything he’s seen since he was the Winter Soldier and nothing could derail his focus.

“Does he need to spend the night in the med bay?” Steve asks, turning his worried gaze onto Shuri.

“Not this time,” she says, focused on cleaning Bucky’s wound. “Next time, maybe. You become reckless when you fight. You have to be more careful.”

Bucky looks to Steve to see if he’ll come to his defense, but Steve only looks like he agrees with Shuri. And he does. At Steve’s behest, Bucky is learning to take better care of himself, but he’s still not familiar with the concept of self-preservation during battle. All he knows is offense. Defense is still a strange concept.

They look at each other for a long time. Bucky’s bare shoulders are tight, rigid, his back curved with a slouch. He looks guilty, somehow, like he’s done something wrong; or pleading, like he wants something from Steve, but Steve can’t guess what it is.

Steve is the one who breaks, eyes dropping to Shuri’s hands as they deftly wrap Bucky’s chest in gauze.

“It won’t take long to heal,” she reassures him, straightening her back and laying a hand on Bucky’s shoulder. As if it’s an afterthought, she grabs a jar from a cabinet behind Steve and hands it to Bucky. “Apply this to your wound in the morning when you wake up, and in the evening before you sleep. The pain will be gone by morning. Perhaps sooner. Wait to shower. Tomorrow afternoon at the earliest.”

“Thanks, Shuri,” Bucky says, managing half a smile as he reaches for the jar.

Steve straightens himself, too, uncrossing his ankles and unfolding his arms. “You’re the best, Shuri,” he says, patting her back.

“I know. You two be careful.”

Steve picks up his shield and leaves the med bay with Bucky, walking nearly shoulder to shoulder with him, lingering close enough to steady him if he falls. He has his vest wadded in his fist, his grip so firm that his knuckles have gone white; Steve notices, lays a hand over Bucky’s fists, but that’s all.

They retreat to Steve’s quarters, where he puts down his shield and Bucky drops his vest into the floor, all but collapsing into a slouch on the foot of Steve’s bed, his head in his hands. Steve doesn’t hesitate, gets him a glass of ice water and gently pries a hand off Bucky’s face, pressing the cold glass into it. “Drink this. Slow, okay? I’m gonna shower.” Bucky nods, looks up at Steve with red-rimmed doe-eyes, panicked, almost. He looks like an injured animal, afraid, needing to be gentled. Steve pushes his fingers through Bucky’s hair and Bucky closes his eyes.

Steve showers in record time, hanging up his gear. He pulls on a white t-shirt and a pair of navy sleep pants, cleaning up after himself in the cool marble bathroom before going back to the bedroom to sit himself next to Bucky.

By now, he’s finished the water and has pocketed ice in his cheek, looking a little more relaxed. He looks up when Steve walks back in, managing half of a subdued little smile. “Wish I could take one,” he says, glancing down at the wrap around his chest.

“You can still clean up,” Steve offers, gesturing to the bathroom. “Come on. I’ll get the stuff for it.”

Bucky follows him to the bathroom. Steve turns on the water and lets it run until it’s hot, nearly scalding. He soaks a few washcloths underneath the running water, doesn’t watch Bucky while he strips down to his boxers and leaves his boots and gear in a heap by the bathroom door. Steve drops soap into the steadily filling sink and turns the water off, handing Bucky a washcloth for his face.

“Stay with me,” he gently pleads, glancing up at Steve before he hides his face in the washcloth under the guise of scrubbing dried sweat and blood off himself. 

“I’m not going anywhere,” Steve gently reassures him. Reluctantly at first, he saturates a washcloth in soapy water and wrings it out between his hands. Standing close to Bucky, he pushes the hair away from the back of Bucky’s neck and begins to wash it. Bucky slumps forward, elbows on his knees, his forehead resting against Steve’s belly. “You’re okay, Buck,” Steve gentles. “You’re okay.”

“I don’t know why I’m—it’s not like nothing like this has ever happened. I don’t know why I’m so shook up, Steve.” Bucky’s voice comes muffled into Steve’s t-shirt. 

Steve has a hand around the back of Bucky’s head, tenderly, washing across his shoulders with the cloth. He pauses, fingers stroking through Bucky’s hair, and then resumes, kneading the back of his neck with the washcloth, less focused on washing him and more focused on trying to distract him, relieve some of the tension.

“You don’t have to have a reason, Buck. You don’t have to have a reason at all.”

Bucky says nothing, lets Steve pass the hot washcloths over him, erasing nearly every trace of blood and sweat by the time he’s finished. And by the time he’s finished, Bucky’s nearly sleeping against him, his hands loose around the backs of Steve’s thighs, his eyes closed, face hidden in the soft rumpled cotton of Steve’s shirt. 

“Hey,” Steve whispers, leaning over Bucky to pull the plug in the sink, letting the water drain out, laying the used rags on the edge. “Come on. You need some sleep.”

Bucky lifts his head, tired, looks at Steve with those blue eyes and stands himself up. Steve cradles his face between both hands; something heavy hangs between them, a moment passes, and then it’s gone, the rough pads of Steve’s thumbs stroking the ruddy apples of Bucky’s cheeks before he shifts and leads Bucky back into the bedroom.

“Take the bed,” Steve says, and Bucky lingers by the bedside in his crisp white boxers, looking a little lost.

“Where are you gonna sleep?” he asks.

“I’ll probably stay up a while. Don’t worry about me, Buck. You need the rest.”

“Well, so do you.”

At his mild defiance, Steve turns to look at him. “Just get some sleep, Buck. I’ll be fine.”

He can sense Bucky’s disapproval, but watches him climb into bed all the same, wincing, pulling the blankets up to his chin in the cool room. “Goodnight,” Steve says quietly in parting.

“Goodnight,” Bucky returns, too quietly for Steve to hear.

Steve spends an hour, maybe more, watching TV in the common room of his floor before he hears shuffling in the doorway. He turns to find Bucky standing there, holding his arm and looking indelibly shy, his hair tousled, his eyes tired.

“Can’t sleep?” Steve asks.

“No. I need you to come with me,” Bucky says, softly. Steve could swear he’s pouting, but won’t call it, just grinning, instead, as he turns off the TV and gets up. Bucky stops him with a hand on his arm, locking eyes with him. “You can’t leave if I fall asleep. Don’t leave me.”

“Alright. I won’t leave,” Steve promises.

It’s harder than Steve imagined it would be, sleeping with Bucky. His pulse races and he can feel the heat at the back of his neck. He can’t put a name to the feeling that comes over him, but he can guess—he and Bucky haven’t shared a bed since the Whip & Fiddle, the last time Steve could remember them ever touching at all. Bucky had been more timid than Steve had ever seen him, letting Steve take over, for once. Then, Bucky behaved as if Steve was a different person entirely, as if this new version of his best friend put him in awe. 

Steve lays on his back in his bed, now, and listens to the sound of Bucky’s breathing, turned over onto his side, away from Steve.

“I can hear you thinking,” Bucky mumbles after a time, rubbing his cheek into a pillow that smells like Steve’s shampoo.

“Yeah? Hope you didn’t hear anything risky,” Steve says, breathing out a laugh.

“Nah. Not this time.”

They’re quiet for a few moments, and then Steve hears Bucky turning, resting on his back, eventually. He lays with an arm behind his head, the other draped over his belly, and Steve doesn’t have to look at him to know he’s staring up at the ceiling, too.

“You remember the last time — ”

“Yeah,” Steve stops him, his chest feeling inexplicably tight. “Yeah, I remember. You sure you didn’t hear what I was thinking?” 

“Maybe,” Bucky says, grinning. “Do you ever… You ever think about it? Us, what we did.”

“Yeah. I think about it sometimes.”

“I didn’t know it’d be the last time we ever…” Bucky trails off, swallowing. Steve can hear it in the darkness.

“Doesn’t have to be.”

“What?” Steve can hear Bucky turning his head; can hear his hair tousling against the pillow.

“It doesn’t have to be the last time. That’s all. I just mean… we don’t have to leave it at that.”

“You’d do it again?” Bucky asks, no small amount of wonder touching at the tone of his voice.

“I’d do it all the time, if you wanted.” Steve turns onto his side to look at Bucky, propping up on his elbow. He can see Bucky grinning, the curve of his cheek illuminated by the soft light slipping in from behind the shades on the curtain wall to the far side of the room.

“Right now?” Bucky turns onto his side, mimicking Steve’s position, propping himself up on an elbow.

“Buck,” Steve says, feigning disapproval. “Is that what you’ve been getting at all night?”

“What? No. I was really shook up back there. But then you washing my back didn’t do my memory any favors.”

Steve grins, leaning across the space between them and nuzzling Bucky into a kiss—tender, so sweet and so soft that his heart aches over it. Bucky trembles; Steve can feel it in the way he exhales through his nose, the unsteady stream of air against his face. Steve makes a sound, a soft, encouraging _mmm_ , and feels Bucky’s tongue slide across the seam of his lips, tasting its way inside Steve’s mouth.

“There you go,” Steve coaxes, suckling off the tip of Bucky’s tongue. The attention has Bucky shifting, trying to move closer to Steve, closing the distance between them—barely a foot that seems like miles and miles. “Lay back,” Steve says, and Bucky does it without needing to be told twice, settling his shoulders down into the bed, his eyes never leaving Steve, even in the darkness. 

“Has there been anybody else?”

“No,” Bucky breathes, knees falling apart to let Steve slot between them, pressing their hips together to find Bucky aching-hard. “You were the last one. Nobody else.”

“God, Buck.” Steve feels Bucky’s hands sliding over his sides, around to grasp at the fabric of his shirt there on his back, holding him tight. Steve pushes an arm underneath Bucky’s head, hand in his hair, and slips the other under his shoulders, tangling the two of them up close. “You’ve been mine all this time, huh.”

“Yeah. I’ve been yours,” Bucky gasps, leaning his head back, pressing it into the pillows to expose enough of his neck that Steve’s kisses can reach anywhere they want. He smells like soap, or laundry detergent, or something else that’s clean and washed. Bucky’s only half-clean but the lingering salt of sweat on his skin in places makes Steve inhale deep, wanting to wallow in it like a dog, lap it up like he’s starved for it.

“Am I hurting you?” he asks.

“No, Steve. Come on.”

“Come on? Where we going?”

“No, don’t do that,” Bucky pleads, sliding a hand down over the firm curve of Steve’s ass, curling his fingers around and pulling him in tight, like he’s showing Steve how hard he is, showing him how much he needs, how teasing won’t do any good here. “Please don’t. I need you.”

“Oh, Buck,” Steve hushes low and rumbling against Bucky’s throat, rocking their hips together tight. “You sweet thing. Tell me what you need. You know I’ll give you anything, Buck. Just say the word.”

“Fuck me,” Bucky breathes, like the words alone are a relief.

“That quick?”

“Yeah. It’s what I need—you said you’d give me what I need.”

“Yeah I did.” Steve sits back on his heels, peeling himself out of Bucky’s grasp. He slides out of bed to rummage through a drawer and comes back with a bottle that he lays on the duvet near them.

“You were so good that night,” Bucky says, eyes never leaving Steve as he lifts his hips, slides his boxers down and off his feet, stretching out on the bed and spreading his legs. Steve takes it as a cue, pulling off his shirt over his head and doing away with his pants, too, wadding them up and tossing them into a heap.

“Have you had anybody else?” Bucky asks, almost reluctantly.

“Nobody since you, Buck,” Steve says, letting Bucky take him into his arms again, legs wrapped around him, pulling him in close and tight. Steve’s mouth works between kisses and words, his teeth grazing skin. “Didn’t want anybody after you, doll. Nobody could measure up to my best guy. Nobody in the world.”

“I’m gonna go crazy,” Bucky laughs, his hands in Steve’s hair, smoothing over his neck.

“You just feel like you are.” Steve paws for the bottle of lube, dispensing it onto his fingers without pulling away from Bucky. He dips his slicked hand between them and strokes the stuff over Bucky’s hole, petting. Bucky angles his hips up with a satisfied sigh, just slightly, his feet pressed to Steve’s thighs.

Steve’s always been careful; he’s always been easy with Bucky, not wanting to hurt him, never wanting to hurt him. It’s no different, no matter how much time has passed. Even if his hands are shaking with the restraint it takes, he’s gentle when he presses a slick finger into the heat of Bucky’s body, just one, sliding it in until he can’t go anymore. “You still like that?” he asks, stroking at that spot inside Bucky that he knows to be a sweet one, soft and sensitive.

“Yeah, Steve. God,” Bucky gasps, squeezing his eyes shut. “Do another one. Another finger,” he says, shifts his hips and lets Steve in with a second finger alongside the first. It doesn’t hurt, but there’s a stretch, enough that Steve stalls to check and make sure it’s okay, it doesn’t hurt. He hooks both fingers in deep and curls them up toward that sweet spot again, and Bucky groans, holding tight to the back of Steve’s neck with one hand, his shoulder with the other.

Bucky gathers Steve in close to him; Steve presses his forehead into the crook of Bucky’s neck and feels the soft press of an open mouth to his shoulder, Bucky’s arms around his neck. Steve cradles his shoulder with his free arm and fucks him with the other, fingers curled so deep that his last two fingers strain against Bucky’s ass. The muscles of his forearm work with the effort of moving those two fingers in the snug fit of a tight space, but the sounds Bucky makes are enough to keep him going despite the burn in his arm; the way Bucky presses his head back into the pillows, the way he spreads his legs and angles his hips like he wants Steve to go deeper still.

“Shit,” Bucky groans, his toes curling against Steve’s thighs. “You gotta fuck me, Steve. You gotta,” he urges, eyes open, now, and pleading with Steve, pushing him back with a hand on his chest. “Fuck me raw. Make me feel it. Come on.”

Steve’s always taken a certain pleasure from arguing with Bucky and his smart mouth, but not now, not with how desperate he sounds. “Easy, Buck,” Steve says, trying to placate Bucky until he can get inside him, easing out his fingers and reaching again for the lube. He dispenses it into his fist and squeezes it down over the flushed, tender head of his cock, smoothing his free hand soothingly over Bucky’s flank before he gets both of Bucky’s hips in his hands and adjusts him like he weighs nothing, like he doesn’t completely match Steve in size. Steve lines up and presses in until his hips are flush with Bucky’s ass, and Bucky is moaning, pulling Steve in close to him, clawing at his back.

“Shhh,” Steve gentles, sliding his arms around Bucky. A hand tangles with Bucky’s hair, fingers grasping into it like an anchor. Bucky’s whimpering some curse, breathing like he’s shivering with cold, when Steve soothes his mouth with a kiss. Bucky whimpers into it; Steve moves, then, finally, withdraws from the snug heat of Bucky’s body and slides back home, pulling away enough to curl a hand around the back of Bucky’s knee, pushing back his leg when Bucky demands, almost delirious: “Deeper. Please, deeper.”

Steve would be remiss not to oblige.

It takes a moment for Steve to adjust, for Bucky to adjust, and to start fucking him in earnest, but finally and at Bucky’s urging, he does. He sets a good, steady pace, a long, slow thrust that has Bucky’s cock weeping onto his belly, his face buried into Steve’s neck, his toes curling. He groans helplessly, digging his fingertips into Steve’s back, and Steve lets go of his hair, getting both arms underneath Bucky’s legs to push them back and hold them there, nearly doubling Bucky in half to fuck him deeper still, his pace quickening, each stroke long and so deep Bucky can barely breathe.

Bucky reaches behind his head to grab fistfuls of his pillow, trying to anchor himself. He seems restless for a time until Steve binds him up with both legs over his shoulders, Bucky’s hands trembling around to hold Steve’s hips, fingertips digging into the meat of his ass. Steve’s hands tangle with Bucky’s hair and they’re so close, now, nose to nuzzling nose, swapping panting, quivering little kisses. Bucky whimpers into Steve’s mouth when those thrusts go deeper and shorter, barely pulling out. He pleads with his eyes when words fail him.

“Talk to me,” Steve grunts, fucking deep into Bucky, licking his mouth open, kissing him filthy-wet and slow.

“Please come,” Bucky manages, his legs sliding down from Steve’s shoulders and clasping around his waist, tight. Steve gets his hands back where they were without losing so much as a single thrust. “Please come in me. Please, please, please.”

“You don’t have to beg me,” Steve rumbles, kissing him again, feeling the heat radiating between them, off Bucky’s face and likely off his own, too. “I’ll give it to you, sweetheart,” he croons, just so gently, “you don’t have to beg.”

With Bucky’s hands anchored at his hips, and those legs around his waist, and those pleading blue eyes brimming with tears and locked with his, Steve roots deep into the heat of Bucky’s body and comes, growling, his cock swelling and spilling warmth into Bucky’s gut. Bucky’s eyes loll back and his toes curl against Steve’s back. He barely manages to get a trembling hand around his cock before he’s coming, too, with tears spilling over the bridge of his nose as he squeezes his eyes shut and turns his head into Steve’s neck to groan, shaking, as he comes hot over his own chest.

“That’s it,” Steve pants, resting his forehead against Bucky’s temple, feeling the throb of his insides slow to easy pulses as his orgasm subsides. His thighs are trembling when he unfastens them from Steve’s waist, let’s them fall open wide. He wipes his face with his clean hand and laughs, airy and quavering, surprised at himself.

“Don’t move.” Steve’s getting up, easing his cock out of Bucky and disappearing into the bathroom for a towel to clean them up. When he slides back into bed, he fits himself around Bucky’s body, Bucky who hasn’t moved an inch, Bucky who’s practically asleep, already, but still smiling. Steve pulls the blankets up over both of them.

“We okay?” he asks after a silence. Bucky just answers with a soft _mmhm_ and opens his eyes to look at Steve.

“You were crying,” he says, reaching out to stroke away a trail of a tear, gleaming in the soft light. 

“Didn’t mean to,” Bucky hums. “Just felt good.”

“Just ‘good’, huh.”

“Better than good. Don’t be a jackass.” Bucky moves himself, finally, twining his legs with Steve’s, both of them shifting until they’re tangled, fit together like the last two pieces of an infinite puzzle.

“I’ll take a shower with you in the afternoon,” Steve offers. “Get you good and clean.”

“That sounds nice.”

“Then, maybe we can… I don’t know. Maybe we can do this again,” he suggests, grinning and waltzing his fingers up along Bucky’s arm. He feels Bucky smiling against his shoulder before he falls into sleep, mumbling something that he takes to mean ‘yes’, doubtlessly and absolutely ‘yes’.


End file.
